


A Love Eclipsed

by scarecrowstories



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-12 23:12:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18456572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarecrowstories/pseuds/scarecrowstories
Summary: During their stolen century, the IPRE crew grew immeasurably close. They learned how to love one another as few others ever could. This fic is an exploration of that love, and the loss that it ultimately met at the hands of Lucretia's decision.





	A Love Eclipsed

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a TAZ fic! Please tell me what you think! I can be found on Tumblr at scarecrowstories if you're interested in keeping up with what I do. Ideally, if folks like this, I want to write a companion piece for it celebrating the resurgence of their love after their day of story and song.
> 
> Enjoy!

Spending a century with the same people teaches a lot about boundaries. Not only how those boundaries are established, but in how they change over time, what changes them, and why. At first, things were often awkward for all of them. Obviously Taako and Lup were always close, but as the cycles went on and their journey grew harder, there were years where they clung to one another with an infectious desperation. Magnus and Lucretia were the youngest, and bonded over the strangeness of experiencing so much while still barely appearing to be adults. 

But it was only supposed to be a two month mission. Things weren’t meant to be this way. They should be home, they should be celebrating their discoveries with their peers, they should be…

A tense silence settled over their common area on the Starblaster on most nights those early years, before they knew the rules their journey played by. How long until the Hunger found them? What even was it, anyway? Were they being irresponsible by trying to distract themselves from the harrowing weight of it all? How could they even think about having fun when they were being hunted by the end of existence?

Those first few cycles were when they learned the most about one another: their lives before the Hunger, what hobbies they missed, their hopes and dreams. But also little details, like how Lucretia liked her tea, or how Lup went through her morning routine. Magnus made an off-hand comment one day about missing his mother's cookies, only to find Taako in the kitchen the next day experimenting with half a dozen recipes trying to replicate them. Barry mentioned a park he missed, and Lucretia painted a mural of it for him. It wasn't easy coping with what they had lost, but they found ways to deal with the hurt.

No matter how delicately those personal boundaries were navigated, they still fought. Sometimes it was rooted in the stress of that cycle being the final straw, like one year when Taako started crying and shouting any time someone left a dirty dish in the common area. Nobody asked Taako why he was overreacting; Lup had died months earlier, horrifically, right beside him. Another year Merle died suddenly of an illness they didn't understand, and everyone felt like they'd lost a father or uncle. They laughed less, weren't as patient with one another, snapped often.

Other arguments were more easily resolved, like who used the only shower on the Starblaster on what days. Their bathroom etiquette was developed almost immediately into their journey out of necessity. Some bad habits stuck around longer than others, such as Magnus' propensity for leaving toothpaste in the sink and his toothbrush on the counter. For the most part, however, those small details were all they had left reminding them of what they left behind, and they knew that. Deliberate change was made difficult, in a way, by how much control they'd lost over everything else in their lives. Nevertheless, they tried to accommodate basic requests whenever possible.

It wasn't uncommon for any of them to wake up to another crying in the common area, and they quickly learned how to handle each other's grief. Davenport stumbled upon Barry sobbing one night on his way to get a glass of water, and sat down next to him on the couch. At first he didn't say anything; Barry didn't like to have his tears pointed out, some lingering embarrassment from his youth. He let him cry for a while uninterrupted, offering quiet companionship for a time. "We'll make it through this, Barry," he said, sliding him a mug of tea as well as a cool, damp rag.

Barry nodded silently, pressing the rag over his eyes and taking a deep breath. It helped to calm him immensely. He thanked Davenport and the two sat together with their drinks saying nothing before going back to bed. A few weeks later he was able to return the favor one morning when Davenport spent an entire day in bed, depressed. Barry brought him a bottle of wine and deck of cards, and they passed the evening with pleasant conversation.

As they grew more experienced with the natural rhythm their cycles presented, they fell into step with one another as well. Taking care of each other became second nature, and it was beginning to feel like their mission could end with enough time and effort. The task was no less daunting, but the stronger they grew in power and closer they grew in bonds, the more confident they felt.

This especially felt true during their beach year. One of the first days they all laid out on the shore and soaked up the sun, enjoying the sound of the waves. They drunk in the breeze and breathed. If this level of peace was still possible, how could their endeavor be without hope? If they still had laughter, it had to turn out okay in the end, right? 

They had a sand castle contest where Lup kept cheating and using her fire magic to glass the sand into place. Davenport and Merle teamed up but still couldn't make anything of any substance stand on its own for more than a few minutes. Barry and Taako had decent attempts, but Magnus' and Lucretia's shined. They watched the tide take their creations away that night and felt a clawing fear grip their hearts at how familiar that sight was. Afterwards they lit a bonfire and tried to distract themselves again with more stories from home. It would be okay. It had to be.

As the cycles wore on, they became experts at comforting one another through the repeated loss. Even though they knew if one of them died they'd be back soon, it didn't take away the trauma of seeing it happen again and again. Sometimes it was as simple as not realizing a native plant was poisonous until one of them choked to death on their own vomit. Other times when only a few of them would scout out a nearby civilization they found them to be hostile and were killed on sight.

This gave rise to an unspoken rule: no bottling up their grief and pretending to be fine. Nobody in all of existence had dealt with this kind of loss before; who better to understand than the rest of their crew, this found family? They all understood that if they needed anything, the others were there for them. 

Every year that love grew, and nobody was surprised when Barry and Lup finally confessed. They'd had a unique chemistry from the very start, and the whole crew knew it was only a matter of time. Nobody asked them about it; privacy was next to impossible on their small ship. If Lup and Barry wanted the others to know, they would say something. And besides, there was time enough for them to decide.

That next day, Taako got the others to help him set up an elaborate celebration feast in honor of the newfound couple. True lasting joy was becoming harder to come by and they deserved nothing less. As Taako presented the cake he'd baked, he took Lup's hands in his own.

"Lulu, you know I love you. Barry's a total goofus, but I'm glad he's your goofus." He smiled. "I know we joke a lot but I'm happy for you." Then he turned to Barry. "I don't think I have to say this but, like, let's put it on record that if you hurt her on purpose I'm going to kill you and you will be dead, Barold. Like permanently totally dead. Don't even fucking think about it."

Lup laughed and rolled her eyes, knowing this was all part of Taako's personal love language. "I love you too." Despite the threat, Barry's smile didn't fade at all. He understood, too.

The year they made the relics tested their boundaries more than ever before; there was a tension in the air that nothing could dispel, and they were all on edge. Everyone was overly cautious, hyper-vigilant, sensitive to everything around them. If this was going to be the end of their mission, then sooner or later they would have to acknowledge that. Nobody wanted to. Eventually they would have to live the rest of their lives. How was that even still possible? Shouldn't the prospect be exciting?

And yet the more certain it seemed that this was going to be their new home, the more miserable they were. Magnus didn't want to be comforted with distractions. Davenport stopped enjoying his standard escape of a bottle of wine and a deck of cards. Lucretia painted more and more, but her paintings grew bleak as she struggled to cope with this shift in their reality. Her once-vibrant portraits and landscapes were being replaced with abstract ruins, monochrome memories of tragedies barely averted or in many cases not averted at all.

They were so wrapped up in trying to reenter the world at large after what they'd seen that petty bickering became commonplace on the ship. With every story of devastation caused by the relics they grew more bitter, less patient, cold. The love that they had cultivated for one hundred long years was seizing up and crumbling under the weight of the world they'd infected with their presence. Everything good they'd experienced was increasingly eclipsed by gravity of their actions.

The day that they'd woken to find Lup gone was unremarkable; they all took off from time to time. It was okay not to disclose where. They owed that much privacy to each other, after all. Taako and Barry were nervous for her by the next day, the others joining them the following week. At first they searched in a panicked frenzy, terrified by the implications of her absence. She couldn't have died, or she'd have found her way back to them as a lich. Right?

Lucretia listened to Taako sob at night in his room before putting on a brave face the next morning and knew she had to do something. She saw Barry's hands trembling, his eyes empty, and knew she couldn't sit by while they destroyed themselves. Though she'd been preparing her plan for some time, the final straw was when Davenport mistook Taako for Lup, resulting in an emotional meltdown the likes of which she'd never witnessed from him before. Taako screamed for nearly an hour, knocking over furniture and throwing everything around him in a frenzy. Davenport, too, was reduced to tears, apologizing profusely.

She woke up early that fateful morning, staring down at her journals and trying to still her ragged breath. There was no other way to do this, not anymore. Lucretia couldn't bear another day of it when every inch of her screamed that her family deserved better than this, and that she could give it to them. Trembling, she sobbed with each book she fed to Fisher. The more Fisher's lights danced, blissfully unaware, the harder she cried. And when her door opened to reveal Magnus just as she was dropping another journal into the tank, she broke.

Watching his eyes glaze over as she guided him to the ground, his expression fading to a blank stare, was more painful than any death she had witnessed so far. When he fell unconscious from the force of it all, she laid her head on his chest and wept. She made sure the others were somewhere safe so that she could ferry them to their new lives, only to find Barry missing. 

Taako was slumped against the railing of the ship, rocking back and forth and muttering to himself. There was blood on the ground beside him and along the railing. She couldn't ask what he'd done, but she had her suspicions. She led him inside to the common area before he, too, fell unconscious.

She found Merle at the table where he and Davenport always played cards, staring at the spilled deck. He didn't even notice her coming up to him, his state almost catatonic. Davenport was tearing at his hair and keening, repeating his name to himself over and over. Lucretia's gut ran cold as she led them to the safety of the common area, taking the helm of the ship to escort them home.

It was as if they were drunk, looking at one another and saying things like "Do I know you?" and "Hey, you look familiar." She had to lock herself in the bathroom to cry for long while after she heard Taako say to the others "I'm sure you know me from tv. Taako? No? Come on, what have you been doing, living under a rock? I'm famous, baby!" They wouldn't remember, she knew that, but being confronted with the weight of what she'd done was almost too much to bear.

One by one she dropped them off to their carefully chosen lives like a parent leaving their child at their first day of school. She pressed a kiss to their foreheads, gave them a hug, told them to be good, not to be scared. "I'll be back soon for you, I promise," she said. "It's only for a little while, it's okay." Walking away was the hardest part. Their minds were still stitching together a way for them to cope with the gaps in their memories. 

When it was just her and Davenport left on the ship, she collapsed in an exhausted heap. The next morning she was woken by him offering her a glass of water. "I'm Davenport," he said, eyes sparkling.

She took it and thanked him. "Do you know who I am?" she asked, testing the limitations of his memory.

"I'm Davenport," he repeated. There was a pause. He looked confused for a moment and glanced around the ship. "I'm Davenport," he insisted, tone rising in panic. He gripped her arms tightly and cried, saying his name again. She held him as he continued, unsure how she could ever console him. No amount of time together could have prepared her for this.

When he calmed down, she made eye contact with him. "I'm going to make this right. I love you. I promise you we'll be happy again." 

"Davenport."

"Yes, I know. That's who you are." In that moment, it felt like the only truth she had left. She had to step away from their hundred year journey and carve a path to a better future. Her family were scattered to the winds now, for better or worse. She suspected that she might not be able to leave him alone to fend for himself, and was prepared to care for the piece of him that remained. "You're Davenport."


End file.
